FIGURE 2.

S. pneumoniae grows in the sessile form on surfaces coated with type I collagen by a mechanism involving PfbB. (a) Effect of pfbB deletion on sessile growth of the encapsulated D39 strain (D39) in wells coated with type I collagen (Coll I) or bovine serum albumin (BSA). ΔpfbB, D39 pfbB deletion mutant. Columns indicate optical density at 595 nm (OD_595nm) of solubilized crystal violet. Shown are means ± SDs of three independent experiments conducted in triplicate. *p < 0.05 by the Mann–Whitney test. (b) Adhering aggregates (purple) of the encapsulated D39 strain and its isogenic pfbB deletion mutant (ΔpfbB‐D39) before crystal violet solubilization.